The book develops a comprehensive framework for doing philosophy of time. It brings together a variety of different perspectives, linking the ordinary conception of time with the physicist’s ...
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The book develops a comprehensive framework for doing philosophy of time. It brings together a variety of different perspectives, linking the ordinary conception of time with the physicist’s conception, and linking questions about time addressed in metaphysics with questions addressed in the philosophy of language. Within this framework, the book explores the temporal dimension of the material world in relation to the temporal dimension of our ordinary discourse about the world. The discussion is centred around the dispute between three-dimensionalists and four-dimensionalists about whether the temporal profile of ordinary objects mirrors their spatial profile. Are ordinary objects extended in time in the same way in which they are extended in space? Do they have temporal as well as spatial parts? Four-dimensionalists say ‘yes’, three-dimensionalists say ‘no’. The book develops an original three-dimensionalist picture of the material world, and argues that this picture is preferable to its four-dimensionalists rivals if ordinary thought and talk are taken seriously. Among the issues discussed are the metaphysics of persistence, change, composition, location, coincidence, and relativity; the ontology of past, present, and future; and the semantics of predication, tense, temporal modifiers, and sortal terms.Less

The Language and Reality of Time

Thomas Sattig

Published in print: 2006-05-11

The book develops a comprehensive framework for doing philosophy of time. It brings together a variety of different perspectives, linking the ordinary conception of time with the physicist’s conception, and linking questions about time addressed in metaphysics with questions addressed in the philosophy of language. Within this framework, the book explores the temporal dimension of the material world in relation to the temporal dimension of our ordinary discourse about the world. The discussion is centred around the dispute between three-dimensionalists and four-dimensionalists about whether the temporal profile of ordinary objects mirrors their spatial profile. Are ordinary objects extended in time in the same way in which they are extended in space? Do they have temporal as well as spatial parts? Four-dimensionalists say ‘yes’, three-dimensionalists say ‘no’. The book develops an original three-dimensionalist picture of the material world, and argues that this picture is preferable to its four-dimensionalists rivals if ordinary thought and talk are taken seriously. Among the issues discussed are the metaphysics of persistence, change, composition, location, coincidence, and relativity; the ontology of past, present, and future; and the semantics of predication, tense, temporal modifiers, and sortal terms.

Discussions of personal identity commonly ignore the question of our basic metaphysical nature: whether we are biological organisms, spatial or temporal parts of organisms, bundles of perceptions, or ...
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Discussions of personal identity commonly ignore the question of our basic metaphysical nature: whether we are biological organisms, spatial or temporal parts of organisms, bundles of perceptions, or what have you. This book is a general study of this question. It begins by explaining what the question means and how it differs from others, such as questions of personal identity and the mind-body problem. It then examines critically the main possible accounts of our metaphysical nature. The book does not endorse any particular account but argues that the matter turns on issues in the ontology of material objects. If composition is universal–if any material things whatever make up something bigger–then we are temporal parts of organisms. If things never compose anything bigger, so that there are only mereological simples, then either we are simples–perhaps the immaterial souls of Descartes–or we do not exist at all. If some things compose bigger things and others do not, we are organisms.Less

What Are We? : A Study in Personal Ontology

Eric T. Olson

Published in print: 2007-11-01

Discussions of personal identity commonly ignore the question of our basic metaphysical nature: whether we are biological organisms, spatial or temporal parts of organisms, bundles of perceptions, or what have you. This book is a general study of this question. It begins by explaining what the question means and how it differs from others, such as questions of personal identity and the mind-body problem. It then examines critically the main possible accounts of our metaphysical nature. The book does not endorse any particular account but argues that the matter turns on issues in the ontology of material objects. If composition is universal–if any material things whatever make up something bigger–then we are temporal parts of organisms. If things never compose anything bigger, so that there are only mereological simples, then either we are simples–perhaps the immaterial souls of Descartes–or we do not exist at all. If some things compose bigger things and others do not, we are organisms.

The artworld is a complicated place. It contains acts of artistic creation, interpretation, evaluation, preservation, misunderstanding, and condemnation. The goal of this book is to turn a critical ...
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The artworld is a complicated place. It contains acts of artistic creation, interpretation, evaluation, preservation, misunderstanding, and condemnation. The goal of this book is to turn a critical reflective eye upon various aspects of the artworld, and to articulate some of the problems, principles, and norms implicit in the actual practices of artistic creation, interpretation, evaluation, and commodification. Aesthetic theory is treated as a descriptive, rather than normative, enterprise: one that relates to artworld realities as a semantic theory relates to the fragments of natural language it seeks to describe. Sustained efforts are made to illuminate emotional expression, correct interpretation, and objectivity in the context of artworld practice; the relevance of jazz to aesthetic theory; the goals of ontology (artworld and otherwise); the relation(s) between art and language; and the relation(s) between artistic/critical practice and aesthetic theory.Less

Artworld Metaphysics

Robert Kraut

Published in print: 2007-10-01

The artworld is a complicated place. It contains acts of artistic creation, interpretation, evaluation, preservation, misunderstanding, and condemnation. The goal of this book is to turn a critical reflective eye upon various aspects of the artworld, and to articulate some of the problems, principles, and norms implicit in the actual practices of artistic creation, interpretation, evaluation, and commodification. Aesthetic theory is treated as a descriptive, rather than normative, enterprise: one that relates to artworld realities as a semantic theory relates to the fragments of natural language it seeks to describe. Sustained efforts are made to illuminate emotional expression, correct interpretation, and objectivity in the context of artworld practice; the relevance of jazz to aesthetic theory; the goals of ontology (artworld and otherwise); the relation(s) between art and language; and the relation(s) between artistic/critical practice and aesthetic theory.

This book offers answers to the following questions. What does reality encompass? Is reality exclusively physical? Or does reality include non‐physical — mental, and perhaps ‘abstract’ — aspects? ...
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This book offers answers to the following questions. What does reality encompass? Is reality exclusively physical? Or does reality include non‐physical — mental, and perhaps ‘abstract’ — aspects? What is it to be physical or mental — or to be an abstract entity? What are the elements of being, reality’s building blocks? How is the manifest image we inherit from our culture and refine in the special sciences related to the scientific image as we have it in fundamental physics? Can physics be understood as providing a ‘theory of everything’, or do the various sciences make up a hierarchy corresponding to autonomous levels of reality? Is our conscious human perspective on the universe in the universe or at its limits? What, if anything, makes ordinary truths, truths of the special sciences, and truths of mathematics true? And what is it for an assertion or judgment to be ‘made true’? Answers to these questions are framed in terms of a comprehensive ontology of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, their successors, and their more recent exemplars. Substances are simple, lacking parts that are themselves substances. Properties are modes (tropes), particular ways particular substances are, not universals. Arrangements of propertied substances serve as truthmakers for all the truths that have truthmakers. The deep story about the nature of these truthmakers is addressed by fundamental physics.Less

The Universe As We Find It

John Heil

Published in print: 2012-07-19

This book offers answers to the following questions. What does reality encompass? Is reality exclusively physical? Or does reality include non‐physical — mental, and perhaps ‘abstract’ — aspects? What is it to be physical or mental — or to be an abstract entity? What are the elements of being, reality’s building blocks? How is the manifest image we inherit from our culture and refine in the special sciences related to the scientific image as we have it in fundamental physics? Can physics be understood as providing a ‘theory of everything’, or do the various sciences make up a hierarchy corresponding to autonomous levels of reality? Is our conscious human perspective on the universe in the universe or at its limits? What, if anything, makes ordinary truths, truths of the special sciences, and truths of mathematics true? And what is it for an assertion or judgment to be ‘made true’? Answers to these questions are framed in terms of a comprehensive ontology of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, their successors, and their more recent exemplars. Substances are simple, lacking parts that are themselves substances. Properties are modes (tropes), particular ways particular substances are, not universals. Arrangements of propertied substances serve as truthmakers for all the truths that have truthmakers. The deep story about the nature of these truthmakers is addressed by fundamental physics.

This book explores the variety of ideas and assumptions that humans have entertained concerning three main topics, first being, or what there is, secondly humanity – what makes a human being a human ...
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This book explores the variety of ideas and assumptions that humans have entertained concerning three main topics, first being, or what there is, secondly humanity – what makes a human being a human – and thirdly understanding, namely both of the world and of one another. Amazingly diverse views have been held on these issues by different individuals and collectivities in both ancient and modern times. The aim is to juxtapose the evidence available from ethnography and from the study of ancient societies, both to describe that diversity and to investigate the problems it poses. Many of the ideas in question are deeply puzzling, even paradoxical, to the point where they have often been described as irrational or frankly unintelligible. Many implicate fundamental moral issues and value judgements, where again we may seem to be faced with an impossible task in attempting to arrive at a fair-minded evaluation. How far does it seem that we are all the prisoners of the conceptual systems of the collectivities to which we happen to belong? To what extent and in what circumstances is it possible to challenge the basic concepts of such systems? This study examines these questions cross‐culturally and seeks to draw out the implications for the revisability of some of our habitual assumptions concerning such topics as ontology, morality, nature, relativism, incommensurability, the philosophy of language, and the pragmatics of communication.Less

Being, Humanity, and Understanding

G. E. R. Lloyd

Published in print: 2012-07-12

This book explores the variety of ideas and assumptions that humans have entertained concerning three main topics, first being, or what there is, secondly humanity – what makes a human being a human – and thirdly understanding, namely both of the world and of one another. Amazingly diverse views have been held on these issues by different individuals and collectivities in both ancient and modern times. The aim is to juxtapose the evidence available from ethnography and from the study of ancient societies, both to describe that diversity and to investigate the problems it poses. Many of the ideas in question are deeply puzzling, even paradoxical, to the point where they have often been described as irrational or frankly unintelligible. Many implicate fundamental moral issues and value judgements, where again we may seem to be faced with an impossible task in attempting to arrive at a fair-minded evaluation. How far does it seem that we are all the prisoners of the conceptual systems of the collectivities to which we happen to belong? To what extent and in what circumstances is it possible to challenge the basic concepts of such systems? This study examines these questions cross‐culturally and seeks to draw out the implications for the revisability of some of our habitual assumptions concerning such topics as ontology, morality, nature, relativism, incommensurability, the philosophy of language, and the pragmatics of communication.

Material objects persist through time and survive change. How do they manage to do so? What are the underlying facts of persistence? Do objects persist by being ”wholly present” at all moments of ...
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Material objects persist through time and survive change. How do they manage to do so? What are the underlying facts of persistence? Do objects persist by being ”wholly present” at all moments of time at which they exist? Or do they persist by having distinct ”temporal segments” confined to the corresponding times? Are objects three‐dimensional entities extended in space, but not in time? Or are they four‐dimensional spacetime ”worms”? These are matters of intense debate, which is now driven by concerns about two major issues in fundamental ontology: parthood and location. It is in this context that broadly empirical considerations are increasingly brought to bear on the debate about persistence. The book explores this decidedly positive tendency. It begins by stating major rival views of persistence—endurance, perdurance, and exdurance—in a spacetime framework and proceeds to investigate the implications of Einstein's theory of relativity for the debate about persistence. The overall conclusion—that relativistic considerations favor four‐dimensionalism over three‐dimensionalism—is hardly surprising. It is, however, anything but trivial. Contrary to a common misconception, there is no straightforward argument from relativity to four‐dimensionalism. The issues involved are complex, and the debate is closely entangled with a number of other philosophical disputes, including those about the nature and ontology of time, parts and wholes, material constitution, causation and properties, and vagueness.Less

Persistence and Spacetime

Yuri Balashov

Published in print: 2010-04-29

Material objects persist through time and survive change. How do they manage to do so? What are the underlying facts of persistence? Do objects persist by being ”wholly present” at all moments of time at which they exist? Or do they persist by having distinct ”temporal segments” confined to the corresponding times? Are objects three‐dimensional entities extended in space, but not in time? Or are they four‐dimensional spacetime ”worms”? These are matters of intense debate, which is now driven by concerns about two major issues in fundamental ontology: parthood and location. It is in this context that broadly empirical considerations are increasingly brought to bear on the debate about persistence. The book explores this decidedly positive tendency. It begins by stating major rival views of persistence—endurance, perdurance, and exdurance—in a spacetime framework and proceeds to investigate the implications of Einstein's theory of relativity for the debate about persistence. The overall conclusion—that relativistic considerations favor four‐dimensionalism over three‐dimensionalism—is hardly surprising. It is, however, anything but trivial. Contrary to a common misconception, there is no straightforward argument from relativity to four‐dimensionalism. The issues involved are complex, and the debate is closely entangled with a number of other philosophical disputes, including those about the nature and ontology of time, parts and wholes, material constitution, causation and properties, and vagueness.

This book comprises original chapters that address the central questions and issues that define the emerging philosophy of sounds and auditory perception. This work focuses upon two sets of ...
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This book comprises original chapters that address the central questions and issues that define the emerging philosophy of sounds and auditory perception. This work focuses upon two sets of interrelated concerns. The first is a constellation of debates concerning the ontology of sounds. What kinds of things are sounds, and what properties do sounds have? For instance, are sounds secondary qualities, physical properties, waves, or some type of event? The second is a set of questions about the contents of auditory experiences and of hearing. How are sounds experienced to be? What sorts of things and properties are experienced in auditory perception? For example, in what sense is auditory experience spatial; do we hear sources in addition to sounds; what is distinctive about musical listening; and what do we hear when we hear speech? An introductory chapter summarises many of the issues discussed, provides a summary of the contributions and shows how they are connected.Less

Sounds and Perception : New Philosophical Essays

Published in print: 2009-11-25

This book comprises original chapters that address the central questions and issues that define the emerging philosophy of sounds and auditory perception. This work focuses upon two sets of interrelated concerns. The first is a constellation of debates concerning the ontology of sounds. What kinds of things are sounds, and what properties do sounds have? For instance, are sounds secondary qualities, physical properties, waves, or some type of event? The second is a set of questions about the contents of auditory experiences and of hearing. How are sounds experienced to be? What sorts of things and properties are experienced in auditory perception? For example, in what sense is auditory experience spatial; do we hear sources in addition to sounds; what is distinctive about musical listening; and what do we hear when we hear speech? An introductory chapter summarises many of the issues discussed, provides a summary of the contributions and shows how they are connected.

John Hawthorne is widely regarded as one of the finest philosophers working today. He is perhaps best known for his contributions to metaphysics, and this book collects his most notable papers in ...
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John Hawthorne is widely regarded as one of the finest philosophers working today. He is perhaps best known for his contributions to metaphysics, and this book collects his most notable papers in this field. The book offers original treatments of fundamental topics in philosophy, including identity, ontology, vagueness, and causation.Less

Metaphysical Essays

John Hawthorne

Published in print: 2006-04-06

John Hawthorne is widely regarded as one of the finest philosophers working today. He is perhaps best known for his contributions to metaphysics, and this book collects his most notable papers in this field. The book offers original treatments of fundamental topics in philosophy, including identity, ontology, vagueness, and causation.

The four-category ontology is a metaphysical system recognizing two fundamental categorial distinctions — these being between the particular and the universal, and between the substantial and the ...
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The four-category ontology is a metaphysical system recognizing two fundamental categorial distinctions — these being between the particular and the universal, and between the substantial and the non-substantial — which cut across each other to generate four fundamental ontological categories. The four categories thus generated are substantial particulars (‘objects’), non-substantial particulars (‘modes’), substantial universals (‘kinds’), and non-substantial universals (‘attributes’). This ontology has a lengthy pedigree, with many commentators attributing a version of it to Aristotle on the basis of certain passages in one of his early works, the Categories. Although it has been revived or rediscovered at various times during the history of western philosophy, it has never found widespread favour, perhaps due to its apparent lack of parsimony and its commitment to universals. In pursuit of ontological economy, metaphysicians have generally preferred to recognize fewer than four fundamental ontological categories. This book contends that the four-category ontology has an explanatory power which is unrivalled by more parsimonious systems, and that this counts decisively in its favour. It provides a uniquely powerful explanatory framework for a unified account of causation, dispositions, natural laws, natural necessity, and many other related matters, such as the semantics of counterfactual conditionals. The book is divided into four parts: the first setting out the framework of the four-category ontology, the second focusing on its central distinction between object and property, the third exploring its applications in the philosophy of natural science, and the fourth dealing with fundamental issues of truth and realism.Less

The Four-Category Ontology : A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science

E. J. Lowe

Published in print: 2005-12-01

The four-category ontology is a metaphysical system recognizing two fundamental categorial distinctions — these being between the particular and the universal, and between the substantial and the non-substantial — which cut across each other to generate four fundamental ontological categories. The four categories thus generated are substantial particulars (‘objects’), non-substantial particulars (‘modes’), substantial universals (‘kinds’), and non-substantial universals (‘attributes’). This ontology has a lengthy pedigree, with many commentators attributing a version of it to Aristotle on the basis of certain passages in one of his early works, the Categories. Although it has been revived or rediscovered at various times during the history of western philosophy, it has never found widespread favour, perhaps due to its apparent lack of parsimony and its commitment to universals. In pursuit of ontological economy, metaphysicians have generally preferred to recognize fewer than four fundamental ontological categories. This book contends that the four-category ontology has an explanatory power which is unrivalled by more parsimonious systems, and that this counts decisively in its favour. It provides a uniquely powerful explanatory framework for a unified account of causation, dispositions, natural laws, natural necessity, and many other related matters, such as the semantics of counterfactual conditionals. The book is divided into four parts: the first setting out the framework of the four-category ontology, the second focusing on its central distinction between object and property, the third exploring its applications in the philosophy of natural science, and the fourth dealing with fundamental issues of truth and realism.

The philosophy of mathematics articulated and defended in this book goes by the name of “structuralism”, and its slogan is that mathematics is the science of structure. The subject matter of ...
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The philosophy of mathematics articulated and defended in this book goes by the name of “structuralism”, and its slogan is that mathematics is the science of structure. The subject matter of arithmetic, for example, is the natural number structure, the pattern common to any countably infinite system of objects with a distinguished initial object and a successor relation that satisfies the induction principle. The essence of each natural number is its relation to the other natural numbers. One way to understand structuralism is to reify structures as ante rem universals. This would be a platonism concerning mathematical objects, which are the places within such structures. Alternatively, one can take an eliminative, in re approach, and understand talk of structures as shorthand for talk of systems of objects or, invoking modality, talk of possible systems of objects. Shapiro argues that although the realist, ante rem approach is the most perspicuous, in a sense, the various accounts are equivalent. Along the way, the ontological and epistemological aspects of the structuralist philosophies are assessed. One key aspect is to show how each philosophy deals with reference to mathematical objects. The view is tentatively extended to objects generally: to science and ordinary discourse.Less

Philosophy of Mathematics : Structure and Ontology

Stewart Shapiro

Published in print: 2000-10-12

The philosophy of mathematics articulated and defended in this book goes by the name of “structuralism”, and its slogan is that mathematics is the science of structure. The subject matter of arithmetic, for example, is the natural number structure, the pattern common to any countably infinite system of objects with a distinguished initial object and a successor relation that satisfies the induction principle. The essence of each natural number is its relation to the other natural numbers. One way to understand structuralism is to reify structures as ante rem universals. This would be a platonism concerning mathematical objects, which are the places within such structures. Alternatively, one can take an eliminative, in re approach, and understand talk of structures as shorthand for talk of systems of objects or, invoking modality, talk of possible systems of objects. Shapiro argues that although the realist, ante rem approach is the most perspicuous, in a sense, the various accounts are equivalent. Along the way, the ontological and epistemological aspects of the structuralist philosophies are assessed. One key aspect is to show how each philosophy deals with reference to mathematical objects. The view is tentatively extended to objects generally: to science and ordinary discourse.